


a truth so loud you can't ignore

by teaspoon



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Daydreaming, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10111997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaspoon/pseuds/teaspoon
Summary: Jughead imagines an alternate version of events for the past summer and pines over Archie. That's it, that's the story.





	

Late night at the newspaper office at school, when he’s ostensibly writing – about Jason Blossom, about Polly Cooper, about how murder most foul has unmasked the evil lurking underneath the pristine surface of Riverdale, or maybe about how it was never all that pristine to begin with – Jughead allows himself a moment of quiet introspection. There is, he decides, a version of the story in which Jason and Polly broke free from the restrictions placed on them by adults who were supposed to look out for them but were instead blinded by their own grudges and agendas.

In this version of the story, Archie also showed up for their road trip like he was supposed to, and they drove down to the coast and camped out at night, sleeping in the old pup tent they borrowed from Archie’s dad, heating canned beans and Spam over a burner, staying up until sunrise on the last day so they wouldn’t miss a moment of their escapist fantasy come to life.

In this version, they switched off driving and napping on the way home, until the last rest stop before Riverdale, when Jughead told Archie what he was going back to, what was going on with his dad since he lost his job: the trailer park, the drinking, the mood swings. The way Jughead felt like he was tiptoeing across the surface of a frozen lake. He could hear the cracks forming, he could feel the cold water seeping into his shoes, and the shore was too far away on all sides.

In this version, Archie asked Jughead, “Did he – does he hurt you?” and Jughead didn’t know how to answer. His dad had never hit him, had never laid a hand on him except that one time when he grabbed Jughead by the upper arms and shook him, but that was nothing, that didn’t even leave a bruise. What really cut Jughead up inside was the blankness in his dad’s eyes, the whites of them stained yellow and shot through with lines of pink. The smell of cheap whiskey and beer on his breath. The way he looked right through Jughead even as he stared him in the face and asked him what he’d done with the last bottle. Jughead hadn’t done anything with it, even though he’d wanted to. He’d imagined tipping it down the sink but he’d known it wouldn’t solve anything, not really, and then his dad drank it all and accused Jughead of tampering with his liquor anyway.

Jughead walked out that night without even packing a bag. He thought about going to Archie’s right away but he didn’t want to get his dad in trouble, didn’t want to get shipped out of town or put in the system. It was the first time he’d slept in the projection shed at the drive-in, curled up on the little bench with his collar turned up against the cold. He went back to the trailer for his things the next day when his dad was passed out on the couch, snoring like there was a wood chipper in his throat. And then he moved into the shed and counted down the days until their road trip, until he could leave everything behind for one long weekend and spend quality time with his best friend, who he was secretly afraid was growing away from him.

In this version, Jughead told Archie everything, and Archie didn’t have the answers but he listened, and he pulled onto the shoulder of the road when Jughead’s voice cracked, and he squeezed the back of Jughead’s neck until it felt like Jughead could breathe again. And then when Jughead asked Archie what secrets he was keeping, Archie told him about his songs, about how he was thinking of showing them to Ms. Grundy because she’d taken an interest in him, and Jughead said, “Will you play something for me, when we get back?” and Archie’s smile looked like a whole field of sunflowers twisting towards the sun. It made Jughead feel bright-hot and alive, even with his eyelashes still spiky with tears, and when they got back on the road, Archie drove with one hand on the wheel and one on Jughead’s shoulder, warm and grounding.

They got back to town and Archie drove both of them to his house as if that had been the plan all along, and he asked his dad if Jughead could spend the night. Fred said, “I guess you two aren’t sick of each other yet, huh?” and made them sandwiches for dinner. He told them about all the brouhaha next door, how Polly and Jason had run off together, and Archie and Jughead both resolved to check in on Betty the next day.

They went upstairs and took turns showering away the grime of camping and the dust of the road, and then Archie got out his guitar and played one of his songs, and Jughead didn’t have to lie at all when he told Archie that it sounded great, that Archie didn’t need a teacher to tell him that he was worth something. Jughead didn’t tell him that listening to Archie sing the words he’d written made him feel close to Archie in a way that he hadn’t in weeks, even closer than falling asleep with their backs pressed together through two layers of sleeping bags, but Archie could read Jughead better than most, so maybe he knew anyway.

In this version of the story, Archie started spending all his free time with Jughead again, and if Fred noticed that Jughead slept over four to five nights a week, he didn’t comment on it, and Jughead didn’t mind sleeping at the the drive-in as long as he knew he would see Archie again the next day.

In this version, Jughead worked up the courage to kiss Archie on the last day of summer before school started, heart in his throat and hands balled up into fists in his lap, and when Archie grabbed Jughead by the arms it felt nothing like being shaken loose. It felt like Archie pulling him close, closer, frantic with the kind of desire that had been locked up inside both of them for too long. It felt like Archie’s mouth, hot and wet around Jughead’s tongue, around his Adam’s apple, the tips of his fingers, the tight point of his nipple. They didn’t have sex that night but they kissed and tasted and touched each other everywhere from the waist up, and Jughead felt like he’d been pulled apart and rebuilt by Archie’s hands: a house with a sturdy foundation, with beams that could bear any load.

But in the real version of the story – the one he’s stuck living out – Jughead is alone at the school at 11 o’clock on a Wednesday night, and he’s trying to figure out how to help Betty find her sister because that’s easier than trying to fix anything in his own life. It’s easier to investigate a murder, to dig up other people’s demons, than it is to confront his own.

In the real world, Jughead eats lunch with Betty and Archie, and he tells Archie that they don’t need his help, and he helps Betty uncover the evidence that Polly was telling the truth, even if it all goes up in flames afterwards.

He doesn’t think about kissing Archie at all, except when he’s sitting in the semi-darkness of the newspaper office again, the cursor on his laptop screen blinking hypnotically, the green banker’s lamp making a high-pitched droning noise that makes him feel weirdly less alone. He opens up the messaging app on his phone and scrolls to his thread with Archie, which has gone untouched since the summer. He doesn’t open it, doesn’t need to read the last words they typed to each other before they stopped speaking altogether. After a moment, he deletes the entire thread.

He opens a new message to Archie. He starts typing, deletes it, types again. In the end, the text he sends is, simply: _sorry i missed your performance_.

He sits and stares at his phone for several minutes, tapping the screen when it starts to dim. After a while, three dots appear on the screen; Archie is typing. Jughead waits.


End file.
